31 Days of Horror: Unfriended (R; 2014; 83 min.)

While what’s truly scary is how much time teenagers spend online nowadays (was that a giveaway that I’m a bit “older”?), this scary movie uses the young generation’s uber-connectedness in its favor. Seen entirely from the viewpoint of teenager Laura, while she is chatting, IMing, researching, viewing, and flirting with friends who are each on their own computer one evening, Unfriended lets us join the group chat as they learn each others’ secrets and lies. But they aren’t giving up these scandalous tidbits willingly. They have another “guest” in their chat room who is pulling all the strings and forcing the teens to play a game designed to show how each teen is connected to the recent death of Laura’s friend, Blaire, while exacting revenge as the night unfolds.

Unfriended starts out a bit slow, and you have to be prepared to read A LOT during the movie to keep up (the movie itself is actually a shot of Laura’s computer screen as she pulls up various videos, websites, etc. and clicks away during the chat). Yet it picks up the pace nicely and lets us see only exactly what the teens are seeing, so it feels realistic and we understand the fear the teens are feeling. All in all, a decent movie, though if you are looking for true scares, you won’t find many here.